Lightening Online

This time of year around here is a vitally important one. It’s the time that we need to harvest our crops. Timing is crucial because at the ripe stage is when our grain is at it’s most vulnerable. Once the crop is ripe, there is the potential to lose thousands of dollars in a day.

As a farmer’s wife you tend to become a “harvest widow” as all focus is turned toward the harvest and getting that crop off and delivered to the silos. When I was a young bride, I was stunned at the blinkers my husband seemed to wear during the busy seasons on the farm. Nothing existed in life other than the job at hand (whether that be seeding or harvest or shearing….). He’s a bit better these days and it helps that we’re not currently doing as many acres (and it’s been quite a few years now since we’ve had a big crop to reap due to low rainfall issues) but it’s still a busy and high pressure time of year.

The Header was reaping in the paddock next to the house a couple of days ago so I took some photographs to show you.

This Header doesn’t belong to us (no way we could afford it). We have an agreement with Farmboy’s father which allows us to make use of his header to reap our crop. One day we’ll have to buy our own header and it won’t be anywhere near as big or as flash as this one.

In some parts of the world (ie the US) these machines are referred to as Combine Harvesters. Here, we call them Headers.

Basically they cut off the top part of the crop (where the head is that contains the seed) and thresh out all the seed. The seed goes in the box (which is rather full in this picture) and the chaff gets blown out the back.

This is what the header looks like from the front:

I find these machines quite intimidating. Front on they look like a monster that’s just ready to eat me up (and I suspect I’d come off second best if I did end up being run over by one).

And here is the rather full Header pulling up to unload into the truck:

The Truck IS ours. This is only our second harvest with it and Farmboy is still in love. He’d been wanting to get a truck for a very long time and our old one really wasn’t up to the task of carting the grain. This one makes the job a lot easier and can cart more in a load (meaning we need to take less trips to the silo).

Harvest is currently the only time the boys work in together (Farmboy, his brother and his dad). It’s kind of a bittersweet occasion this year though as Farmboy’s brother has decided to leave farming so it’s their last season together.

It’s also a horrible time of year for me because I’m allergic to grain dust. I have no one to blame but myself really. I knew this before I married Farmboy. While we were “dating”, I climbed up onto the header they had at the time and ended up coming out in hives. Great idea to go ahead and marry a farmer knowing I’m so allergic to grain dust. At least it’s something treatable. But it does leave me feeling rather drained at this time of year as my body fights the allergens in my system.

Once upon a time it was also a fun time to watch the bank account as most of our year’s income would come in within the space of a few weeks. Of course, most of the money coming in goes out again to put the next crop in but it was still fun to watch. Not so much in the past years with poor yield’s and other factors affecting our income. Hopefully that fun will return again one day. Right now we are very thankful to have the crops that we do have. While they may not be fantastic, they’re a definite improvement on nothing.

I’m a bit behind when it comes to news. I don’t watch it as a general rule. Too depressing really. While we were away, I visited a news website in search of something and the headlines greeting me were along the lines of “SA farmers watch crops die”. Oh good. We went away figuring at least we wouldn’t have to watch our crops die. See, news is bad. Not knowing is much better!!!

Of course, the down side to not watching the news is that I never really know what’s going on. However, most of the “important” stuff tends to filter through in blog posts, conversation and of course, those great comedy shows we have here that are based on news headlines.

In fact, I was watching one last night (okay, half watching). One I haven’t seen before. Something to do with the question or along those lines. And I happened to catch a question about the renaming of the drought.

WHAT?

Yes, apparently some very bright (and possibly overpaid) bunny has come up with the idea that if change the word “drought” to “dry”, farmers won’t feel so bad.

GOVERNMENT experts say the word “drought” is making farmers feel bad and want people to use the word “dryness” instead to describe Australia’s worst “lack of rain” in a century. Source: http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,24540442-5009760,00.html

Of Course!!!! Why didn’t I think of that???? That changes EVERYTHING!!!!

“Words like drought … have negative connotations for farm families,” the report said.

NEWS FLASH: It’s not the WORDS that have negative connotations for farming families. It’s working your butt off all year for NOTHING!!!!

For those of you who are unfamiliar with farming, drought is actually a NORMAL part of the weather cycle. Most farmers are reasonable business-people and will be prepared for a drought. It does depend on where you live as to how normal weather patterns in terms of drought might affect you. Around here we work on 1 in 7 years being a severe drought. We also work on 1 in 7 years being when we’ll actually MAKE any money. The other 5 flutter around the “average” mark. In other parts of Australia, it’s not uncommon to have more years of drought and perhaps more in a row.

The problem in recent years has been EXTENDED drought. Most farmers in this area coped fine with the first drought. Many even managed to survive the second year of drought (actually, it’s a bit more complicated than that - the 2nd year here wasn’t actually a drought - we were badly affected by very low grain prices). When you tip into a 3rd year of going backwards in terms of the farms cash flow balance, the stress starts to show. In all honesty, I’ve lost count of the number of years in a row where we have either gone backwards or simply “survived” (enough to cover the bills and not really go backwards but not enough to catch up from the years we’ve gone backwards).

I’m kind of confused though, as to how a panel of “experts” can come up with the idea that changing the word “drought” to “dryness” is part of the solution to the ongoing problem Australia is facing right now in terms of rainfall. Yes, drought has a negative connotation. But aren’t we only playing with semantics here? Will changing the word Earthquake to “a little shaking” change the devastation that an Earthquake can wreak? Perhaps we’ll change Tsunami to “oversized waves”?

In fairness, I went to check out the report being quoted by various media. The media love to grab hold of the tiniest snippet and sensationalize it. I hope they don’t feel like they’re “helping” because in reality they’re not. All they’re doing is removing the focus from the real problems and possible solutions.

I’m trying to wade my way through the actual report but it’s 160 pages long and I’m tired.

Here’s what I DO know:

• We live in a very blessed country that works hard to look after ALL of it’s citizens. While the system may not be perfect, we are grateful for the assistance that has been given by the government to date. Like all systems, there are those who’ll go to any lengths for a “freebie” even if they don’t need it. Those kinds of people make me mad and in all honesty, I hope Karma comes and bites them on the bum at some point. There are others who fall through the cracks for one reason or another. They are a concern. As are those who are so connected to the farm that they feel living in such circumstances is just no longer a viable option and take their own lives (thankfully we haven’t seen too much of that around these parts this time around).
• I know many farmers are nervous because past Labor governments have made it quite clear that they don’t value farmers as a vital part of our economy or community. Let’s hope the current Labor government doesn’t share that attitude.
• Farmers are incredibly adaptable people. They’re constantly adapting to the conditions set before them. Given time, if these conditions are here to stay, they will adapt. Assistance may be needed in the interim and funding into research and technology can help in the long-term.
• Name changes really isn’t going to get to the heart of the problem. While solutions are complex and will vary from situation to situation, I think the suggestion to change the terminology from “drought” to “dryness” is just plain stupid.

You can read more on this at National Review of Drought Policy.

One of my boys (who will remain nameless for privacy’s sake) spent all day Saturday in our local hospital. Thankfully the government hasn’t gone and closed it on us like they were threatening a while ago (and I understand they’ve done a backflip on that particular proposal - something I am also thankful for).

After some rough and tumble with his brother, he sustained an injury to a rather delicate area of his anatomy. It’s not an area you want to take chances with so we whisked him into town Saturday morning when he woke with swelling to the area.

It’s obviously not an area our local doctor wishes to take chances with (thankfully we now have a local doctor after 12 months without one) and he admitted him to hospital for observation.

Today we had to take him almost 200km to have an “urgent” ultrasound done. Urgent in the sense that we couldn’t wait the 2-3 weeks to get a “regular” appointment.

The hospital rang on Saturday to make this “urgent” appointment and we were told to come at 10 am and they would fit us in when they could.

We headed off early to be in the town by 10am only to have them tell us to come back at 12 noon.

Okay.

Said child is supposed to remain lying down.

I had to travel the whole way down in the back so he could lie down in the front seat.

We don’t live in town.

Yet they want us to come back in 2 hours.

I guess that’s better than having to sit in the waiting room for 2 hours.

Just.

*sigh*

Poor kid.

I know medical services aren’t all that great in the cities either (in terms of waiting times, locations etc) but some days I find it most frustrating that the bulk of our services are almost a 2 hour drive away. If they couldn’t see us until 12, could they not have told us that? Or called us? We do have phones out here in the sticks. We could have stayed home for those couple of hours so that he could lie down comfortably.

Anyway, all looks fine and he’s on bed-rest until the swelling goes down. It looks like there shouldn’t be any permanent damage done.

There’s never a dull moment with kids is there?

Here are some photographs I took at the Field Days last Wednesday. The kids get the Wednesday off from school so they were our focus on that day.

Trailer Boy having some fun at the local Case IH dealer’s stand. Even better was having people in the “know” who made sure he got a free Case showbag with lots of goodies including a tractor keyring which he thinks is PERFECT because the wheels actually move and the keyring section makes a great “trailer” (I think he’s calling it a spreader). Shhh….don’t tell anyone that I pilfered the Case pen from his bag - it’s a good pen!!!

If Farmboy had a never-ending cheque book, this would be his next purchase. Well, one of them anyway. Isn’t it shiny?

This is “apparently” the tractor Farmboy would like to buy for me to drive. The look of terror on my face is REAL, even if I’m not really driving it!!! It’s BIG!!!

See!!! TOLD you it was BIG!!! Not as big as the one Farmboy is drooling over in the photo above but waaaayyyyy too big for ME!

Here is Singstar Princess looking beautiful as usual. I wonder how much Megafert will pay me for featuring their balloon on my blog??? I didn’t even get a free beanie or scarf from them either!!!

“Dad, can we buy one of these?” Trailer Boy would LOVE a 4-wheeler! We’d like to get one as they’re quite handy around the farm. However, it’s the kind of purchase that is very “non essential” during extended drought. One day….

So there is a brief glimpse into one of our days at the Field Days. It’s very red isn’t it? I have to admit I’m rather partial to the red coloured machinery myself (the main opposition to red is green - John Deere). Plus of course good coffee and good company made the local Case site quite attractive.

Lambing season is drawing to a close here on Farm Lightening (hee, hee, wonder what Farmboy would think if he knew I’d renamed his farm????) .

The other day Farmboy and his brother had all the ewes in with their lambs and Farmboy was able to count how many lambs he has this year. He was extremely happy with our final lambing percentage for the year which was well over 100%. Meaning we had a lot of twins born this year.

Twins are great. You kind of get two for the price of one.

Of course, they do come with their own risks. It’s not unusual for Farmboy to have to assist a mother with giving birth to a second lamb.

It’s a busy time for Farmboy as he needs to keep a closer eye on the sheep than usual. Not that he’s out there with them all the time or anything but he likes to check them at least once a day.

This photo shows two very newborn lambs that Farmboy delivered. It’s not very clear because it’s been taken from quite a distance back. It’s important not to get too close to newborn lambs and their mother. But if you look closely, you can see that the lambs are still partly covered in blood and afterbirth.

Lambs are one of my favourite part of living on a farm. They are so cute running around after their mums in the paddock. 

Every 2 years, the town nearest to where we live almost bursts at the seams as people flood in for an Agricultural Field Days event.

It’s quite a big deal around here and injects quite a few funds into our community. It also requires ENORMOUS amounts of work so it is a busy time within the community.

There are people to accommodate and feed as well as gates to be manned, sites to be manned, cars to be parked, rubbish to be collected (although this is outsourced now) and so the list goes on. Before and after the Field Days there are tents to be erected and then pulled down again.

It can actually be a bit overwhelming if you’re involved in too many community groups and end up on too many rosters.

But for the most part it’s lots of fun.

For many years it was the only week we had mobile phone coverage. Towers were put up for the Field Days and then taken down again afterwards. THAT was very frustrating. These days we have better coverage out here so that’s not quite the issue it used to be.

On Sunday we went for a little tour of the site and Trailer Boy was pointing out all the tractors and other shiny machinery items he intends to buy. LOL. Not sure where he thinks he’ll get the finance from but he can dream.

Here are a couple of photo’s I took of the Field Days site.

Not that they can really do justice to the size of the place.

What would have been even better was if I’d taken a shot of the site before the tents went up. Each year more sheds and things are being built so it’s not quite as dramatic as it used to be. Once upon a time it would go from looking like a paddock to looking like a temporary city in a matter of weeks.

Of course, all you citified people wouldn’t think much of the size of it. But given our town usually houses only 1000 or so people, it’s a significant size. Funnily enough, two years ago the Field Days fell right at the same time as the Census. I’m sure that made for some interesting statistics.

The main purpose of the Field Days is to showcase new innovations in the agricultural industry. They do also have what is referred to as the “general interest” section (kind of the “farmer’s wives” section really ).

There are also cooking demonstrations, fashion parades and talks on various topics such as gardening and finance.

The kids love going to all the various sites and picking up freebies such as pens, rulers, notepads and hats. Although the freebies are getting less and less each time and with the seasons we’ve been having, I suspect they may be even sparser this year.

On Wednesday the local school closes so that all the students can go to the Field Days. We’ll go as a family on Wednesday but for the other two days, Farmboy and I will be pretty much separate. Between our different shift times (for working on various group food stalls etc) and different interests, we probably won’t see much of each other on those two days. Although we do have a lunch put on by our bank on Thursday that we’ll go to together.

It should be a fun, albeit busy, three days.

I’ll try and take some photo’s to bore you with show you later in the week.

Yesterday my brother brought his two girls down to the farm for a visit. It has been almost 2 years since we’ve seen them. They live quite a distance away from us. The youngest has never been to the farm and the older one has only been to stay once, over 3 years ago.

So we thought it would be fun to show the “city cousins” a bit of what life on the farm is like.

Here are the kids on the back of the ute, ready to go feeding sheep.

My 4 year old niece hanging over the side of the ute watching the sheep eat the grain. The ute is barely moving at this stage (for anyone concerned about safety issues).

One of the great perks of living on a farm is that our kids get to “drive” the ute rather young. Here Farmboy is setting the ute in motion so that our 4-year old niece can have a drive.

“Look daddy, I’m driving”. A is very intense as she attempts to steer the ute over toward the sheep. That’s my brother hanging his head in the window, enjoying the fun his daughter’s seem to be having.

“I can’t believe I’m driving a REAL CAR” says my almost 7-year old niece. Mum might be in China but can you really top driving a REAL car????

Here’s Singstar Princess with her cousin Z playing with a couple of lambs we brought in from the paddock.

Farmboy showed the girls milk coming from the mother of one of the lambs. Later in the day the 4-year old stated “milk comes from a cow, not sheep”, with a very serious look on her face. She must have spent an hour or more trying to process that confusion. It was all rather cute.

Farmboy showed the visitors how a sheep gets shorn. And showed off his growing bald spot for posterity’s sake.

“A” thought the shearing plant was a little loud. My boys are taking it in their stride. Singstar Princess has seen it all before and is playing in the background.

Leighton showing the cousins how it’s done.

“A” decides she would like to have a go. As long as Uncle Farmboy turns off the noise!

Some things are the same - city or country. Cousins dressing up.

I think you could say a good day was had by all.

I wrote most of this post before we went away for the funeral but didn’t quite get it finished. If you missed my first two posts in this series you can find them at Shearing and More on Shearing. Anyway, my apologies for the delay in getting this posted.

Once upon a time you didn’t only feed the shearers during the day but they stayed on your property overnight. Around here this is less common these days although in station country it still happens (shearing works a bit differently on stations to farms).

Nowadays, even feeding shearers is becoming less common. Some people are making use of contracting shearing teams which will often include a cook as well as shed-hands and a wool-classer. The farmer pays the contractor a flat rat per sheep shorn and the contractor then pays everyone else and deals with things like workcover, tax and superannuation.

We still pay each of our shearers and shed-hands individually and have to deal with the tax etc side of things ourselves. In some areas, even if you do employ your shearers individually they bring their own packed lunch.

Part of our issue here is a shortage of shearers. It’s in your best interests to keep your shearers happy so they’ll continue to come back to your property. When you need to leave home at around 6AM, not having to pack your own lunch is a definite bonus. And as I mentioned yesterday, if you don’t feed them you need to pay them a lunch allowance which is a reasonably substantial amount. So we still feed our shearers.

The Shearing Day

The shearing day is divided up into 4 “runs”. Each run goes for 2 hours. So the day has a set timetable that looks something like this:

7.30 - 9.30 Run 1

9.30 - 10.00am Morning smoko

10.00 - 12.00 Run 2

12.00 - 1.00pm Lunch

1.00 - 3.00pm Run 3

3.00 - 3.30pm Afternoon Tea

3.30 - 5.30pm Run 4

One of the things some Farmer’s Wives find hard is the stringent timetable. When you’re trying to feed babies and work a day around children, it’s not always easy to have food ready by a set time.

Actually, most shearers are pretty laid back. It’s the farmers that can get testy if things aren’t running to schedule. Fortunately for me, Farmboy isn’t like that. And I tend to leave myself plenty of leeway when preparing food to allow for interuptions and delays.

What Do The Shearers Get Fed?

I was thankful that my MIL gave me some kind of guide as to how much food she prepares for shearing. What shearers get fed will vary from shed to shed and how much they eat varies from shearer to shearer (actually it’s often the shed-hands that eat a lot as they don’t have to bend over like the shearers do).

There is some kind of standard when it comes to food. I think it’s 2 biscuits for morning and afternoon tea and a couple of sandwiches for lunch. Something like that anyway. But I don’t know anyone who only provides the “minimum”. I think you’d get grumpy shearers if you did.

The following is basically the guide my mother-in-law gave me. I tend to provide just a little bit more than this (just in case).

Morning Smoko

1 and a half sandwiches per person or equivalent in other savoury items (eg party pies, pizza etc)

2 slices of cake/bun or equivalent in biscuits (I usually double the quantity for biscuits) per person

Tea & Coffee

Morning Smoko is often the first food shearers eat for the day. It’s common for them to skip breakfast so by Morning Smoko they can be a tad hungry.

Lunch

Lunch varies a lot depending on the location of the shed (some are close to a house and some not) and the weather. Things like salad rolls, cold meat & salad, lasagne & salad, quiche & salad, pies & pasties, yumbos (ham, cheese & pineapple melted in a roll) etc.

Dessert is always provided. I mostly keep it light by making it fruit based. Fruit salad, jellied peaches, fruit crumble. Generally with cream as that’s easier to put on the table and allow them to serve themselves than ice cream is. Not all shearers will eat dessert but I always provide it anyway.
Cold cordial and tea & coffee for beverages

Afternoon Tea

3/4 of a sandwich per person or equivalent in other savoury items

1-2 serves cake/bun. I usually do 2 different items but they might be smaller slices or I’ll add something like biscuits as the second item.

My kids LOVE shearing time as I tend to over-cater “just in case” so they enjoy the leftovers. In fact, Leighton was so used to going to the shearing shed only during food times that I’m sure he thought the word “shearing” was synonymous with “eating”.

My biggest fear with catering is not having enough. Often I’ll also do a container of fairly plain biscuits that get used as “extras” for the duration of shearing, just to be sure there is enough food. It’s pretty unusual not to get something come back from the shed but it does sometimes happen, although Farmboy will sometimes confess to having finished off stuff toward the end of the day . He doesn’t eat very large serves of the evening meal during shearing.

Cut Out

During the warmer months we provide cans of soft drink for the end of each day. Many sheds provide beer but we don’t drink it so stick with soft drink. Some shearers will bring their own beer but this is rare.

Cut Out is more commonly referred to when the shed is finished. Some sheds will provide a bbq and “booze up” at the end of shearing for the shearers, shed hands and neighbours. This isn’t a tradition that Farmboys father ever kept so we’ve never really worried. Our shearers seem just as happy to get on home as they are to hang around for a free “booze up”.

Here’s an image of Lamingtons for Maggie:

* image courtesy of www.questacon.edu.au

Lamingtons are well known as “shearers fare”. I’m too lazy to make them myself but will sometimes buy them for shearing. Mostly our shearers get an assortment of cake and bun. Sometimes homemade and sometimes bought depending on how busy things are leading up to shearing.

Footwear for Shearers

Just for Kelley, here is a photo of what most shearers wear while shearing:

* image courtesy of www.austshear.com.au

I don’t think they’re going for “style”. More comfort, non slip and functionality. These are only worn INSIDE the shed. Generally they arrive wearing something else (like thongs with socks *giggle*).

I was going to take a few more photo’s to show you a bit more about our shearing shed. However, I’ve found a few trawling the net that work just as well to give you the idea (and save me having to go up there again - it always stinks for the first few minutes when you’re in there, especially close to shearing time).

SHEARING EQUIPMENT

This image shows a close up of what a shearers handpiece today might look like. There are a number of different brands which vary slightly but the overall idea is the same. The vertical section clips into the shearing plant in the shed and the shearer holds onto it behind the comb on the section shown as horizontal in this image. Most shearers use a “rug” to cover the metal section they hold onto. That makes it more comfortable to hold and also reduces the amount of heat the hand is exposed to (the metal can get rather hot). The “rugs” I’ve seen look a little bit like a stubby holder type fabric.

* image courtesy of www.shearoutback.com.au

This image shows what shearing blades used to look like before sheds were connected to electricity. They’re still used in some places but are not very common anymore.

* image courtesy of www.leaderproducts.com.au

The skill involved in shearing a sheep quickly with a set of these must have been absolutely amazing.

SORTING THE WOOL

In my post yesterday I posted a photo of farmboy and his brother loading wool into the wool press. This is what the bales look like when they come out of the wool press.

* image courtesy of www.woolisbest.com

These are not our bales so the name on them has nothing to do with me (just an image I flogged borrowed used without permission with acknowledgement).

You might be able to see “AAAM” stencilled to the side of the bales (you can click on images for a larger view). This is pronounced “3AM” (just like the time) and is the mainline of wool from that propery (ie what you’ll get most of your money for).

By sorting out the “not so good” stuff from the “good stuff”, you improve the quality of your “mainline” and therefore get paid more cents per kilogram for that.

Heads and bellies - I made the comment in yesterdays post about the wool from the top of the sheep’s head and the belly being kept separate from the rest of the fleece. Both of these sections of the wool are shorter and the under-belly often gets matted and burred. Mainline wool has a minimum length it must be.

Classing wool is quite a complicated task and you are required to be registered and include your classing registration when selling wool. The margin of error allowed is quite small. Not only do you need to keep the pieces that are shorter separate but you’re only allowed a certain percentage of non-wool matter (such as dirt and grass) in with the bale.

Things like fleeces with a break in the wool (caused by illness or some other stress in the sheep as the wool is growing) need to be kept separate and sometimes you’ll get a sheep with a different wool micron (don’t ask me to explain that one!) so that gets separated from the mainline as well.

HOW MUCH DO SHEARERS EARN?

Shearers are paid per sheep they shear rather than an hourly rate. This means that the faster you shear, the more you earn.

The current rate we pay a shearer per sheep is $2.50

Now a learner shearer “officially” gets off their “L-plates” at 100 sheep in a day. So you could say the “base rate” for a shearer is around $250 per day.

An “average” shearer is likely to fall in the 125-200 sheep per day so around $300-$500 a day.

A “good” shearer can shear 200+ per day (some will get up around 250-300 but there are a lot of factors that will determine how fast the sheep are shorn). So anywhere from $500 - $600+ in a day.

Sounds alright doesn’t it? Bear in mind that this is a “before tax” rate AND shearers don’t always get paid superannuation (it depends how much they earn in a particular shed as under a certain figure in a month employers don’t *have* to pay superannuation). You also don’t get paid holidays, sick leave or public holidays. And most shearers shear for a maximum of 6-months of the year (picking up other seasonal type work in between).

Most shearers leave home around 6-6.30AM and get home around 6-6.30PM and then have to spend around an hour grinding their cutting gear ready for the next day. It’s certainly not a job for the faint hearted.

Next Instalment (if you’re not all totally bored already?): Feeding the Shearers